Calorie Counting - How Much Do I Need to Eat?

What do I eat?

When do I eat?

How much do I need to eat?

This is a problem for most people who either want to lose weight or build on it. It's easy to say 'eat and you'll be big' and yeah, this does work - but you don't want to put on 3 stone of unwanted fat or say lose all your fat and muscle mass at the same time.

Ahh, what do you do then?

First of all you need to produce a guild line where you need to start from, another words how many calories to start eating in a day and it is very simple when you know what you are doing.

First step

You need to begin by finding out how much energy you burn without exercising or eating, this gives us our calorie needs, another words what it takes to run your body at your specific weight and size.

Your weight in pounds ...x 11 = ...This gives us the total calories the body needs to run.

Second step

We need to eat to survive and we all do some kind of exercise like walking to the shop or looking after children, this all takes effort and energy from the body.

Activity Level

o Mostly sedentary - 25%

o Moderately active - 35%

o Dedicated exerciser or athlete - 45%

Calories that your body needs to run ...x activity level ...% = ...You metabolic rate.

Third step

This step is to find out how many calories your body needs to simply function on an average day.

Your basic calorie need ...+ Your metabolic rate... = ...Total calories need to function on an average day.

Forth step

We have our daily calorie intake now and we need to find out how much extra calories we need if we want to build muscle and train.

Your maintenance total ...+ 500 = ...calories needed to gain muscle.

Fifth step

We don't always won't to build muscle, maybe we won't to shed some of those fat pockets around the body.

Your maintenance total ... - 500 = ...calories less a day to lose fat.

Starting off with this simple plan can help you get one step closer to your goal of having that perfect body. When starting training I suggest that eating extra protein to help boost and maintain your muscle is necessary. Eating just over a pound of protein for every pound you weigh in a day is the recommended allowance.